We’ve come through a very tough week with my oldest. The toughest ever. By last Friday, the storm had mostly passed, and Bubba sat with a group of adults in our living room.  He has always liked being around the adult conversation, and has to be shooed away when the wine is flowing, and the teacher gossip starts.

I looked at him, all tousled blond bangs and shinbones, and contemplated the end of my blogging career.

Bubba has appeared frequently here dating back to 2006. At that point, when he was eight or nine, it still felt like his life was our life. Sure, kids have secrets as soon as they can talk, but most issues that arise with children that age still seem like something that can be discussed in public without necessitating therapeutic intervention.

Privacy just wasn’t on my radar, partly because not many people read dad blogs, partly because our family had already sacrificed so much of our privacy by living on a boarding school campus. My wife and I generally feel like we have nothing to hide.

But the privacy issues get more complicated as these kids gain agency.  As they become teens and young adults, their experience is more clearly their own. No huge surprise here, but my almost 13-year-old son is going to require some time outside the purview of DadLabs to sort it all out.

Which is too bad for me because I’ve never been less certain of myself as a dad, and the greatest thing about this gig has always been this: if an issue comes up in our house, I research it and turn it into a blog or a video. Helps me deal.  So right now I’m wondering how to be a good dad to a pubescent boy.  So far, all I know for sure on the subject is that a 12-year high school teaching career and an even longer stretch of living on a veritable island populated by teens has done absolutely nothing to prepare me to parent one. My knees are weak, and I feel more self-doubt and anxiety than I have since Bubba was in the NICU with a IV stuck in his head, a tiny preemie.

I wish I could quote the author (I think it was Ron Mattocks, but it might have been John Cave Osborne — step forward and claim your quip, boys), but the notion that all parenting blogs come with an expiration date was voiced in the “Dad Shack” at the Mom 2 Summit. (Why wasn’t somebody live blogging that?)

I’m often feel like father time in the blogosphere — it’s a young person’s game, but I wonder if others see puberty looming on the horizon as a game changer at the least, and maybe even the end of the line.